Peru Ponders Pardon for Former President As Tragedy Unveils Slavery Like Conditions for Peruvian Workers

By: Max Cohen
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

LIMA, Peru – At least 2,000 Peruvian citizens protested July 7th, urging President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski not to pardon the country’s ex-leader Alberto Fujimori, who is currently serving 25 years in prison for human rights violations.

Protesters in Peru display photos of victims as they march against a possible pardon for former president Alberto Fujimori. Photo courtesy of Reuters.

One of President Kuczynski’s chief promises that allowed him to win the election against Fujimori’s daughter Keiko, was that he wouldn’t pardon Fujimori. However, Kuczynski proposed a potential pardon for Fujimori last month for health reasons, just after Kuczynski’s finance minister was ousted by a Congress dominated by Fujimori’s supporters.

Fujimori held office from 1990-2000, and was convicted in 2009 for leading groups which had massacred civilians and kidnapped journalists during his tenure. Despite this, Fujimori has an enormous amount of support due to his role in fixing Peru’s economy and stopping a bloody leftist insurgency. In fact, a May Ipsos poll found that 59 percent of Peruvians back a humanitarian release for him.

President Kuczynski meanwhile, has said that he will follow the recommendation of the doctors evaluating Fujimori, as to whether a pardon should be given for medical reasons. However, in 2013 a medical team which was then evaluating Fujimori said his condition didn’t warrant a pardon, so it is possible that history will repeat itself.

On June 27th, President Kuczynski had condemned the conditions some workers were living in after a fire killed four people imprisoned inside a shipping container by their boss. They had been locked inside to prevent theft, and detection by municipal inspectors. Since then Peru’s public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into human trafficking and labor exploitation. The International Labor Organization described the conditions in which the workers died and 17 others were injured as akin to modern day slavery.

After only Mexico and Colombia, Peru has the third highest rate of cases of forced labor and human trafficking in the region and is 18th worldwide, per the Walk Free Foundation’s Global Slavery Index. Jorge Toyama, a labor lawyer, claims that the country only has 500 labor inspectors when it needs four times as many, and that many workers in Peru are not aware of their rights.